ROK, DPRK to hold meeting for Kaesong complex

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea planned to hold working-level talks to discuss management of the Kaesong industrial complex, Seoul's Unification Ministry said Wednesday.

Unification Ministry spokeswoman Park Soo-jin told a routine press briefing that the fourth round of the Kaesong industrial zone's joint management committee meeting will be held from 10 am Thursday in Kaesong, the DPRK's border town.

Park said that representatives from both sides will discuss issues to develop the factory park in a constructive way, while reviewing how well agreements reached in the past subcommittee meetings are being implemented.

Pyongyang proposed to hold such talks one day before Jang Song-thaek, uncle of DPRK leader Kim Jong-un, was executed on Dec 12 for anti-state crimes such as plotting to topple the government and the party.

The third meeting of the management committee in charge of running the joint industrial zone was held in mid-September.

The fourth meeting will coincide with visits of 30 foreign officials and experts to Kaesong, which was possible as Pyongyang accepted Seoul's previous request. The officials planned to tour the complex and have meetings with workers there.

The travelers to Kaesong include finance officials and central bankers from Group of 20 delegations who visited Seoul for the G20 conference along with officials from international bodies such as the Bank for International Settlement, Asia Development Bank and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Eui-do said that Pyongyang was seeing Jang Song-thaek's execution as an internal affair that should be separated from the issue of the Kaesong industrial complex, adding that such trend was expected to continue in the future.